What comes after a dental appointment?
another appoinment, of course!
So I’ve finally got an X-ray of my mouth, 2 in fact – front view and side profile. It took me a damn long time cuz I wanted it at a subsidised rate. Actually the waiting time for an appt at National Dental Centre (NDC) isn’t long. It’s the polyclinic that has waiting time of more than 3 months. All for that freaking piece of refferal letter to NDC.
I seriously don’t get it. If I had gone straight to NDC on my own, I don’t get the subsidy rate. I must go down to polyclinic for a consultation and then they’ll give me a referral letter to NDC cuz they don’t do wisdom tooth extraction and surgery there. Only with this referral letter then I can get a subsidised rate. Actually I’m not too concern about getting a subsidised rate for my surgery cuz that will be covered by Medisave. I’m only concern for other side-cost such as X-ray, consultation etc. I’ve done my calculation and the savings is about $50+ for those stuff and for surgery is alot more (but I didn’t calculate any savings for that cuz it’s 100% covered by Medisave). This subsidised rate is applicable to all Singaporeans regardless of income, so I don’t get it why must the referral letter be compulsory to get subsidised rate at NDC. Why can’t we just head down straight to NDC?
If X-ray can be done at Dental polyclinic so that I only need to go down to NDC for the surgery I don’t mind. But the problem is, the sole visit to the Dental polyclinic is just to get the referral letter cuz they don’t do full mouth X-ray there. Then I have to make an appointment to NDC which is simply just another consultation and for X-ray. Finally make another appointment for extraction and surgery. Waste of time, right?
Anyway, I was also annoyed from my experience with Bedok Dental polyclinic. From what I’ve learnt from the web and friends, I know that the consultation at the Polyclinic is a short one, like I said earlier on just to get the damn letter. So when I found out that the next available date was 3 freaking months away, I tried to reason with the lady at the counter if I can just quickly get have a dental visit on that day itself cuz it’ll be quick after all. She keeps insisting that it’s not possible. Well, I surrendered and make my appointment for 3 months later. A week before my appointment, I had another pain from my last wisdom tooth that’s rupturing. Unable to bear the pain any longer, again I went down to the clinic hoping that they can allow me for walk-in cuz after all it’s an emergency. But again, my request was turned down. It was damn annoying lah!
So finally on the appointment day itself, true enough the whole thing lasted less than 5 min. I barely had warmed the chair. I can’t believe that the consultation was $20+ when all that he told me was that I had 4 wisdom tooth (duh!) and needs to be extracted, some by surgery which they don’t do there (double duh!) and that he will refer to me NDC (triple duh!). Lastly he mentioned that I should consider braces.
LIKE WTH?! I waited for 3 months for only less than 5min with the dentist? And the stuff he said were all that I knew already.
The moment I got the referral letter, I dreaded to call up NDC for an appointment, fearing that it will probably be another 3 months wait. But surprisingly, the next available date was just 3 weeks away.
So, just now I went yet for another dental visit. After doing the X-ray I went back to the dental room, but the dentist shooed me to an ortho cuz I had replied that I don’t mind considering braces after he asked me about it. I thought this was to save time while waiting for the x-ray result to be out. But as I was going out of the room, I realised that the results was already up on his computer and he’s studying it. I was quite annoyed cuz my visit was for my wisdom tooth. The braces thingy can wait after that. Anyway, I made my way to the ortho and yet another dentist probing into my mouth.
He then asked me why am I considering braces. Like wth. I feel like telling him why not you ask all the dentist that I’ve seen in my whole lifetime. Every dentist is always telling me that I should wear braces, even when I was in primary school and now you’re asking me why am I considering it? I thought I needed it?! To consider it means that thing is elective and not compulsory, right? If that’s the case that I won’t go for braces then. But all the dentist had made it sound like I need it and from my misaligned tooth, I’m not surprised why.
Anyway, I wasn’t too sure what to answer so I simply said that I think I have overcrowded teeth.
He asked me to clench my teeth and he commented that I had open bite.
I explained that it could be because of the wisdom tooth, especially the lower one cuz before that one grows out, I had no problem with biting. Then he told me that it may not be so (obviously he doens’t believe me that this open-bite problem is only recently!) cuz our jaw has different growth spurt and for me, my lower jaw is longer than what it is supposed to be. I was surprised that he came to this conclusion by just this observing my teeth. I thought he would at least need the side-profile X-ray to make those comment on my jaw length.
Then he carried on explaining that braces alone cannot solve my problem and I’ll need lower jaw surgery (even the sound of it scares me!). He said they will cut my lower jaw on the right and left side, shorten it and fused it again. I told him that why not he explained to me more about braces and that I will consider the surgery part maybe only after my braces treatment is completed. But he said that the surgery should be considered concurrently with braces cuz treatment of braces with and without surgery is different and that surgery only after the braces is not possible cuz surgery is halfway during the braces treatment.
By this point, I thought might as well just do part by part which is focus on wisdom tooth cuz that’s why I was there in the first place. So I told him that I will consider all those stuff and discuss with my parents. At this point, he actually asked for my age. When I replied that I was 23yr old, I was pretty sure that he looked like, “This age also must ask parents, eh?”. Or maybe I was just against him. haha.
So I went back to the previous room to get diagnosis for my wisdom tooth. Apparently only 1 will need surgical removal (hurrah!) while the other 3 will be extraction, but one of it if can’t be extracted will be surgically removed.
I made my payment and set another appointment. Till my next dental adventure!
perfectly flawed 